


The Luck of This Age

by J (j_writes)



Category: The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/M, Nonbinary Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 02:15:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8871727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: "It feels like mockery, like they're all congratulating me and looking at me for the wrong reasons, for something I didn't do.  Or something I didn't mean to do, at least."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hardlygolden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardlygolden/gifts).



The festival is too loud, too much, made only marginally more bearable by the way Puck's hand wraps around his, warm and strong and comforting. Most of the time they spend together is alone, out of view of the town, quiet nights around the table at Puck's, riding together through the surf on the beach, but tonight they make their way through the crowds held tight to each other's sides, like a single unit.   
Puck's eyes find his in the flickering light, and he feels wild, a _capaill_ held on a lead, ready to buck and thrash against it. It's not long before Puck is dragging him toward the cliffs, away from the noise and the press of people and the eyes on them, and he lets himself flop to the hard stone, falling backwards and staring up into the night sky, feeling his chest loosen, learn to breathe again.

"Sorry," he mutters. "If you want to go back - " but when he looks over, Puck's face is drawn, expression strained.

"No. This is...good."

They're quiet for a while, Puck pulling out a book and sketching in it, Sean listening to the far off music, drawing patterns in the stars with his eyes, and it's calm, quiet, like an evening anywhere but here.

"It feels wrong," Puck says finally, feet kicking arrhythmically at the edge of their rock, not quite in time with the waves. "To be there, to be...celebrating. Is it always like this? After you win?"

"I don't know," he says. "Last year felt more like winning than any time I crossed the finish line first. This is new for me too."

"It feels like...lying," Puck says. "All of them looking at me like I changed something, like I did something worthwhile."

"You did," Sean objects.

"I saved my house," Puck says. "There's a place for Finn and I to go back to at the end of the day. That's all I wanted, and it shouldn't mean anything to any of them. It wouldn't, if we'd lost it, or if we had earned it back any other way."

"That sounds like winning to me."

"Sure," Puck agrees, "but not in the way they all think of a champion of the Races. It feels like mockery, like they're all congratulating me and looking at me for the wrong reasons, for something I didn't do. Or something I didn't mean to do, at least."

"Maybe," Sean concedes. "But you did _something_ , even if it means different things to them than it does to you."

"So - " Puck hesitates for a moment, not quite looking at him. "When I walk around down there with them, letting them all think what they want, you don't feel like I'm playing them somehow?"

He's cold, his jacket long since wrapped around Puck's shoulders, but the chill of the stone beneath him is a relief, grounding him. "You? Play people? That seems even less likely than you winning the race with an island pony."

"Horse," Puck corrects him.

"Horse," he agrees. 

"It doesn't feel like a lie to you?"

"What doesn't?" He asks, curling onto his side to look at both Puck and the sea.

"This," Puck says, hands waving indistinctly. "Me."

"No." At another time, before they knew each other – _really_ knew each other – it was the kind of short, curt answer that Puck would have found rude, but now Sean can see the hint of a small smile curving out from under a puff of red hair. 

"No?" Puck repeats. "Just no?"

"You _did_ something last year," Sean elaborates. "You changed things." He doesn't say _for the better_ , because he's not sure he believes that, but he doesn't need to wave back toward the festival to prove his point. Puck's eyes go there anyway, and Sean can hear the raised voices, the cry of the _capaill_ , good-natured yells between the riders. Ian's in it again this time, taking advantage of Sean's absence to try to score another win, and this year there's young Eileen Dodge, too, and Sophie Darrow from the mill, and so many other names who would never have stood on the cliffs to spill their blood before, for better or worse. "Let them believe what they want."

"Yeah." Puck's leg presses against his side, and he lets a hand fall over it, warm and steadying. "You're probably right."

"I am," Sean says, and doesn't miss the quirk of Puck's lips at his cockiness.

They fall quiet again, Sean watching the clouds hide the stars in patterns above them, Puck scribbling down notes, doodles, maps of nothing and nowhere. Eventually, Sean's eyes drift from the sky to Puck, to the intent gaze at the pen scraping across the paper, a faint smear of flour beneath the edge of flyaway hair, left from hugging Finn, quick, capable fingers –

Puck's eyes find his, and he smiles. It's soft, reflexive, and cut short by the press of Puck's lips against his.

Kissing Puck is like seeing the sea, turning a corner on the cliffs and being overwhelmed all over again by it spread out there before him, wild and beautiful. It's always and never a surprise, making something tight and ugly inside of him release and go calm for just a moment, just long enough that he wants to hold onto the feeling forever.

When Puck pulls away, Sean keeps his eyes closed until he hears the tearing of paper. He opens them to find Puck's hand reaching out, offering a scrap to him. He folds his fingers over it and pushes it gently away.

"I don't have any curses left to free myself of," he says. His eyes flicker to Puck's. "Do you?

Puck's lips twist into a small complicated smile, and for a moment Sean thinks the next words will be a denial, but instead Puck says, "Just one."

Scrawling, backwards, they write down the name that used to be theirs, and their fingers tangle into Sean's as they fling the scrap of paper into the sea.


End file.
